Hubert was open to new ideas and eager to make improvements in the community. Probably in the 1930’s some government entity decried that there would be a tick irradication program. The ticks had become really thick due to open range for all cattle. Dipping vats were built at various places so that all farmers would have access to them. The farmers were then ordered to dip all their cattle. There was resistance to this order. Clee, Cleston and Cloyce thought it was a feeling of resistance to interference from the government in their daily lives and that they also resisted because it required considerable work and effort to round up your own cattle off the open range and herd them to the dipping vat that may be on someone else’s property, and dip them.
There were "enforcers" for compliance with the law. Feelings ran so wild that one "enforcer" was shot and killed, presumably a "bushwhacking" and the killers never found. One night the dipping vat built on Hubert’s place was blown up – dynamited! Both Clee and Cleston remember being awakened by the blast. They ran to the vat and they remember the fluid with insecticide dripping from the tree limbs. The vat was destroyed, but later rebuilt. In recent years Clelan and Cleston Martin and Charles Stuart found it, still intact, though covered with plant growth.
The vat was about two to three feet wide and about four feet deep. The cattle were run through the vat and at the exit there was a concrete ramp called the "drip-pan" which the cattle would stand in until the insecticide dripped off and ran back into the vat. The tick irradication program did seem to be very successful according to Clee Martin. There were a lot less ticks following the program.
Later the boys found another use for the dipping vat. They would fill it with clear water from the spring and learn to swim. The narrow sides made it easy to grab on and get a breath if you needed it!